According to statistics, approximately twenty-five to thirty percent of the population is on a diet. Unfortunately, more than half of them will quit the diet before they’ve reached their goal. And a surprising number will regain all of the weight they lost. This is evidence to how difficult dieting and losing weight really is. A diet coach can be the answer for many people.

What Is a Diet Coach?

A diet coach is someone who essentially helps a person stick to their diet. A diet coach can specialize in a number of things. They can be certified nutritionists and help create diets for their individual client goals. They can be an expert in a specific type of diet, for example the Atkins Diet. They can also simply be motivational coaches with a specialization in diet coaching. They can be the person who offers that extra oomph a person sometimes needs to overcome dieting challenges.

How Does a Diet Coach Make Money?

A Diet Coach can utilize a number of business models to generate profits. You could create a diet coaching membership site where you provide one-on-one and group coaching. You could charge by the hour for your coaching services. You can also create and sell information products like diet cookbooks and motivational guides. Finally, another option might be to become an affiliate for some diet products.

Starting a Diet Coaching Business

You don’t need a formal degree to become a diet coach. To get started, however, you may want to obtain certification. You can become a certified coach, nutritionist, personal trainer or a combination of these. You’ll also want to make sure you have a means to communicate effectively with your clients. That may mean you need a business phone or reliable transportation if you’re meeting with them face to face.

You’ll likely also want a website to market your business. If you’re offering group coaching or a membership program than you’ll want your website to support those functions as well.

Marketing a Diet Coaching Business

Because diet coaching is something that can be provided online or off, you’ll want to decide who your primary audience is. If they’re online, then the majority of your marketing will also be online. You may use online advertisements, article marketing and social networking to spread the word about your coaching business.

If your clients are primarily local individuals, then you’ll want to also market offline. You can use advertisements in your local paper, flyers, a booth at fairs and festivals, and brochures. Online or off, you’ll want to have a website to represent your business.

A diet coach needs to have a strong and positive personality. You want to be able to help your clients by motivating them to reach their diet goals. This requires good communication, a system to support them and the desire to help. If you have these requirements and a basic knowledge about diet and nutrition, you can start your diet coaching business today!

Celebrating A Three Year Old Birthday Party With Candles And Balloons

Do you love kids and parties? Are you super at organizing and do you have a great eye for detail? Are you enthusiastic and outgoing? If so, then a kids’ party organizing business may be just right for you.

Party organizing is a growing trend. Birthday parties seem to be getting more and more elaborate and this trend doesn’t seem to be slowing down!

A kids’ party organizer will help plan and create fun and unique parties that may range from a cowboy-themed barnyard party to an elaborate party in a castle with all the works.

How Do I Get Started?

Firstly, you’ll want to ensure that your personality is suited to this business. You’ll need to be creative as well organized. Having an outgoing personality will also help a great deal.

The next step, and a crucial one at that, is to decide who your target market will be. Parents willing to hire a party organizing service will likely have disposable income and be quite happy to spend it on their children.

You’ll also want to be clear on what type of services you’ll provide. Some party organizing services will handle everything from finding the right theme, to setting up and organizing the party, to decorating and even catering.

Offering an all-in-one service is ideal because this is probably what your customers will want – someone to plan the whole thing from start to finish without too many complications.

Write a list of what services you’ll offer. As you do your research, you’ll notice the list may be endless – from providing an ice cream van to hot air balloons! Of course, you don’t have to start at this level and many of these services can be subcontracted out. However, it’s important to know exactly what you can and can’t offer customers at the start.

What about the Legalities?

You’ll want to start by registering your business. You can do this at your local county office and they will let you know of all the requirements you need to meet. Depending on what type of services you provide, this may vary.

If in doubt, contact your local county office and they should be able to provide you with all the details.

How Do I Find Customers?

Advertising locally through banners and perhaps a small ad in the paper is a great starting point. A magnetic sign on your car with your company logo and information is another good option.

But the main way of finding new clients in this business is through word of mouth. If parents attending the party see and like what you’ve done, they’ll ask for your details and before you know it, you’ll have a full client list. Word-of-mouth marketing is extremely important in this type of business so you’ll want to do your absolute best to provide a great service.

If you love kids and parties and are highly organized and outgoing, this may be a fantastic business idea to pursue.

Parents have to make special considerations when it comes to starting a home business. They need to be able to work without punching a clock or having to available at particular hours, otherwise they’ll have to get a babysitter. Parents who want to start a business from home may have special challenges if they don’t want to hire help. But, it’s not impossible. In fact here are the top ten home business ideas for parents that don’t require clock punching, or answering to anyone but yourself.

1. Stock Photographer – Stock photography is used in numerous applications, from websites and blogs to print ads. The demand is quite high for good and unique photographs to use for these reasons. Therefore, most stock photography companies allow independent contractors to upload pictures for sale on their websites. You can also start your own website offering the images for use.

2. Graphic Designer – Designers are needed everywhere; the demand is high. If you’re good with using creative software to make webpages, advertisements, banners, book covers (eBook and paper) and more, you can work for many companies at the same time performing these services. While it’s deadline based, you can still work at 3 am if you need to.

3. Freelance Writer – As a freelance writer there are many different opportunities today based on your skill level. You can write for so-called content mills, individuals looking for writers, as a copywriter writings specific sales copy, or you can write for yourself and publish your own books as PDFs or via Kindle Direct Publishing.

4. Arts and Craft Seller – If you’re artsy and like creating art, you can do more than just create. You can sell, and you can make bank. Sites like Etsy.com, DeviantArt.com, and Art.com make it easy for individuals to upload pictures of their work to sell. You are responsible for shipping it on time, and you’ll give a percentage of sales to the website you list on. You can also start your own website but usually you’ll make sales faster working through an established and trusted venue.

5. Amazon Seller – Fulfillment by Amazon has started a trend in individuals selling both new and used merchandise through their service. Leaning how to sell on Amazon can take a little time but there are people who are making six plus figures doing it, and you can too. This is something you can do on your own time, with your children in tow.

6. EBay Seller – Selling on eBay is a little harder than the other choices, but many people do it successfully as a full-time job. If you have access to the right products, you can do it too. Again, this is something you can do on your own time. The only thing that might take a lot of work on your part is packing and shipping.

7. Life Coach – You’ve seen a coach at a football game, but did you know that some people hire “life coaches” to help them with everyday life? Some people need help with parenting skills, whilst others need help getting through a life challenge like divorce. You can become a life coach with no experience. The hardest part is setting up the process, marketing your business, and getting new clients. There are also courses that you can take to help.

8. Lifestyle Blogger – You’ve likely seen the movie, “Julie & Julia” right? Well, Julie started out as just another blogger, blogging about her adventures cooking from Julia Child’s cookbook. She became very popular, sold the rights to her story, and a movie was made. She made money off the deal, of course. Today, bloggers blog about all sorts of things and earn money through advertising, affiliate marketing, and product promotions. You can, too.

9. Herb Gardner – This work-at-home business takes a little time and work, but it’s healthy, the children can help, and you can make about 60K a year from your back yard if it’s allowed in your area. You can sell at farmers’ markets but you can also sell directly to restaurants if you plan and market right.

10. Online Teacher – If you have a degree in teaching you can teach at online K-12 schools right from home. You can also, if you have at least a master’s degree, teach college courses online. What’s really great is most of the time you can sign on when you want to, from anyplace with an internet connection to do your job, as long as you meet certain minimums.

Working from home is often a parent’s dream. They can be near their kids, not have to work by someone else’s clock, and still earn enough money to not only pay for needed items but the wanted items as well. What could be better?

It’s important to be careful when looking for work-at-home jobs in order to avoid scams. Hopefully this list of ten legitimate work-at-home companies can help you find a job and avoid being ripped off. Remember, even with this list, be sure to check out everything and do your due diligence to avoid feeling used. You want a job that pays enough to make it worth it to work, and you want a job that values your experience too. One of these might fit.

Transcription Services

1. Nuance Transcription Services – With a focus on medical transcription, this is a real job as an employee doing transcription. They offer extra training for experienced transcriptionists and are often looking for qualified transcriptionists.

Link – http://www.nuance-nts.com/

2. Orion Transcription Services – If you’re experienced with transcription, this is a good place to apply for a job. You must be U.S. based and have at least two years of experience to get one of these medical, legal or other transcription jobs.

Link – http://www.oriontranscription.com/career-opportunities-contact-form/

3. Tigerfish Transcribing – If you’re new to transcribing, you can take the test and apply with Tigerfish Transcribing. Plus they direct you to free software to use for practice to help you with passing the test.

Link – http://tigerfish.com/employment/

Call Center Agent

4. LiveOps Agent – With this company you can do many different types of positions from inbound calling to insurance sales, claims, and more. They work with many well-known companies and hire educated and experienced sales professionals.

Link – http://join.liveops.com/

5. West at Home – This inbound calling center will hire beginners after giving a small voice test, if you pass the background check. It’s a good place to get started if you want to be a call center agent.

Link – http://apply.westathome.com/

6. Sykes Home Powered by Alpine Success – This company prides itself on hiring military spouses, retirees, and parents to work at home answering calls. They also hire in Canada, and are especially looking for bilingual workers.

Link – https://jobs.alpineaccess.com/

7. Working Solutions – You get to start your own business while also having the comfort of knowing you have a big business behind your success. You are a contract worker with training and once you schedule your hours you know you’ll get them.

Link – http://www.workingsolutions.com/work-at-home-agents/

Teaching Jobs

8. Ed2go Network – If you have a degree, you can teach. In this opportunity you can write and develop courses as well as online teaching jobs. What’s available depends on the time, but they are always taking applications. How much money you can make will vary but even they say on their site not to quit your day job. But it can be combined with other opportunities to make a full-time income.

Link – http://www.ed2go.com/TeachWithUs.aspx?tab=Introduction

9. Elevate K-12 – If you have a teaching certificate and teaching experience, you can teach online. While you do have some control over your schedule, they ask that you are available between 8 pm and 4 pm each day.

Link – http://elevatek12.com/careers.html

10. ETS – Writing, scoring, and even fellowships are available via ETS. You’d be scoring advance placement tests, and other types of proctored tests that students take for advancement or certification. If you’ve always wanted to be involved in helping shape testing given to students, this is your chance.

Link – http://www.ets.org/careers

Two Bonus Opportunities

11. Blue Zebra Appointment Setting –They offer different positions such as appointment setter in which you might perform cold calling to try to set appointments for another sales professional to talk to the person again. They also sometimes hire virtual administrative assistants. All positions are independent contract positions.

Link – http://www.bluezebraappointmentsetting.com/Careers.aspx

12. Travel Outlook – If you want to work in the exciting world of travel, this is the chance. You would be working taking reservations for hotel rooms and sometimes other duties such as touring local venues for clients. They want people with experience at least with customer service and working from home to ensure that you’re self-motivated. They say that some of their agents make over 40K a year and you are an employee.

Link – http://traveloutlook.com/jobs/

These are all legitimate companies. There are many more but these offer opportunities that are real. Some take experienced workers while others will take new people too. Hopefully, you can find something that will work for you.

Everyone who is searching for a way to make income from home wants to find a legitimate home business. However, that can sometimes prove to be a difficult task. It seems that there are multitudes of advertisements for different companies, each promising huge benefits. But it can sometimes be a little bit difficult to know what is a legitimate home business and what is not, and nobody wants to be scammed! Here are a few tips to help you sort through a real, legitimate home business from a fraudulent one.

First of all, the age-old saying, “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is,” tends to still work when applied to any legitimate home business. Is someone promising you all kinds of money within a certain, short time period? If so, chances are that it is not a legitimate home business opportunity. Sometimes, thinking through these advertisements logically can help one to solve the dilemma of whether or not it is a legitimate home business idea.

For instance, in the case of income, a legitimate home business opportunity could not necessarily promise you a certain amount of income, because you would be the one responsible for the work involved. Thus, with any legitimate business opportunity, the amount of money you make per week or year would most likely be up to you and your own success and hard work, not a promised dollar figure from someone else. Additionally, when it comes to income in the area of a legitimate home business, be wary of anyone who tries to tell you that you will make very large sums of money in short periods of time. For one thing, if everyone involved in a legitimate home business could make this kind of easy money, don’t you think everyone you know would quit their jobs and work from home with their legitimate home business? Of course, there are some good ways to put a legitimate home business to use and make large amounts of money from home, but it is important to realize that grand promises of large amounts of income may be a potential scam.

Another fraudulent practice of a supposedly legitimate home business is asking for large amounts of money up front as start up costs. It is important for anyone pursuing a legitimate home business to be aware that this is another red flag that may signal bad news.

Additionally, always remember that no legitimate home business can completely run itself. This is something that many people like to claim. However, any legitimate home business will take a fair amount of work and dedication from the person starting it. If you are able to keep these things in mind when searching for a legitimate home business, you will most likely be able to make quality choices which will guide you to the perfect, legitimate home business that you have always dreamed of.